THE COOLING PERFORMANCE OF THE EVAPORATIVE COOLING SYSTEM IN COMBINATION WITH THERMOELECTRIC DEVICES: A CASE STUDY OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF MATERIALS

Abstract

In an area with a hot climate, air conditioners provide cool air for a room or building. However, they use working fluids which cause global warming. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the air production from an evaporative cooling system with thermoelectric devices (TEC’s). The evaporative cooling system is created by a water spray on top of different types of materials (cooling pad, aluminum rods and balsa rods). Different types of materials are tested in order to attain the best efficiency. After the air passes the evaporative cooling system, the air outlet temperature is decreased and the relative humidity (%RH) is increased. Afterwards, the air passes through the TEC’s system. The temperature of the air is further decreased and %RH is decreased. The temperature and %RH is expected to be suitable for a comfort zone. This experiment varies the air inlet temperature, water flow rate and TEC current. However, TEC’s play an important role to control the comfort temperature and relative humidity. The TEC’s cooling capacity can be improved by increasing its input current. Cooling pads appear to provide the best efficiency for the evaporative cooling system with the same amount as others. The advantages of this system are that it is compact, low cost and environmentally friendly. This combination system between evaporative cooling and TEC can be an alternative of producing cool air.